Merge pull request #95 from iron-io/merge

WIP - Updating API to take into account having async tasks and sync.

README.md

@@ -2,16 +2,15 @@
 
 ## Quick Start
 
-
 ### Start the IronFunctions API
 
 First let's start our IronFunctions API
 
 ```sh
-docker run --rm --privileged -it -e "DB=bolt:///app/data/bolt.db" -v $PWD/data:/app/data -p 8080:8080 iron/functions
+docker run --rm --name functions --privileged -it -e "DB=bolt:///app/data/bolt.db" -v $PWD/data:/app/data -p 8080:8080 iron/functions
 ```
 
-This command will quickly start IronFunctions using the default database `Bolt` running on `:8080`.
+This command will quickly start IronFunctions using an embedded `Bolt` database running on `:8080`. 
 
 ### Create an Application
 
@@ -54,6 +53,28 @@ curl -H "Content-Type: application/json" -X POST -d '{
 }' http://localhost:8080/r/myapp/hello
 ```
 
+
+## Adding Asynchronous Data Processing Support
+
+Data processing is for functions that run in the background. This type of functionality is good for functions that are CPU heavy or take more than a few seconds to complete. 
+Architecturally, the main difference between synchronous you tried above and asynchronous is that requests
+to asynchronous functions are put in a queue and executed on separate `runner` machines so that they do not interfere with the fast synchronous responses required by an API. Also, since 
+it uses a queue, you can queue up millions of jobs without worrying about capacity as requests will just be queued up and run at some point in the future.  
+
+TODO: Add link to differences here in README.io docs here. 
+
+### Start Runner(s)
+
+Start a runner:
+
+```sh
+docker run --rm -it --link functions --privileged -e "API_URL=http://functions:8080" iron/functions-runner
+```
+
+You can start as many runners as you want. The more the merrier.
+
+For runner configuration, see the [Runner README](runner/README.md).
+
 ## Using IronFunctions Hosted by Iron.io
 
 Simply point to https://functions.iron.io instead of localhost and add your Iron.io Authentication header (TODO: link), like this:

docs/scaling.md

@@ -0,0 +1,15 @@
+
+# Scaling IronFunctions
+
+The QuickStart guide is intended just to quickly get started and kick the tires. To run in production and be ready to scale, there are a few more steps. 
+
+* Run a database that can scale, such as Postgres.
+* Put the iron/functions API behind a load balancer and launch more than one machine. 
+* For asynchronous functions:
+  * Start a separate message queue (preferably one that scales)
+  * Start multiple iron/functions-runner containers, the more the merrier
+
+There are metrics emitted to the logs that can be used to notify you when to scale. The most important being the `wait_time` metrics for both the 
+synchronous and asynchronous functions. If `wait_time` increases, you'll want to start more servers with either the `iron/functions` image or the `iron/functions-runner` image. 
+  
+